In oilfield environments, treatment of particles (e.g., cuttings) from drilling fluid must be reduced in size for them be able to be pumped into hydraulically induced fractures. Conventionally, the size of the particles as they come out of the drilling process is in a range of 0-30 mm. The size has to be reduced to a size below 300 microns, which is a size reduction ratio of 1:100. Such reduction is typically done with degradation centrifugal pumps or roller and hammer mills, which have either one or two shafts.
Conventional hammer mills can grind particles down to a certain particle size, but then get inefficient the finer the particles are. This leads to a build-up of particles in the milling circuit, which leads to high abrasion on the milling tools, high energy consumption, and equipment failure.